Take control of your personal brand

Have you googled yourself lately? What would google say about you? That you are a great professional?, that your rock climb?, that you are a drunken frat boy/girl with antisocial behavior?  Most people pay very little attention to what is published about them on the web and most will recklessly document their good, the bad and the infamous part of their lives in Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest… but being so non-chalant about the information out there will not help us in our career or our personal lives. It can even affect your credit score. Dispel your illusion than your personal and professional lives are separate.

As more and more companies use some sort of social media background check, it has become increasingly important to own what your presence is on the web – you need to take control of your personal brand. These are the first five steps to take:

1)    Define your personal brand – what do you want to represent?

2)    Google yourself and figure out how far from your personal brand you are – document what you find, and your ranking in the page. Identify possible issues – somebody with the same name a rapist? A convict? A novel laurate?

3)    Visit your Facebook page as a friend – what does it show? What are your security options? Are there photos of you drinking? Doing something stupid?

4)    Take control of your name:

a.    Buy your domain name (if available) and establish a web presence for your brand.

b.    If you haven’t. Create appropriate profiles in all relevant social networks: Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Plaxo, etc.

c.    Register in all appropriate professional associations.

5)    Update or establish your online presence

a.    Update all social networks with relevant information (remove everything that doesn’t fit your brand)

b.    Start a professional blog  - keep it updated

c.    Visit professional forums and blogs and leave opinions and tips, be sure to add value to the conversation – use your real name for all professional forums (nobody knows who dirk117 is)

After a few weeks of this, google yourself again and check if you ranking or your presence have improved… keep at it. It takes time to build the online presence that you want.

BTW, let me know what you find about yourselves.

Helping a partner regain their performance edge.

An under-performing partner or coworker can bring down the performance of a division or the whole company – this may in turn, affect our end-of-year bonus, profit share or work environment. So, rather than saying that it is her or his problem and letting them be, sometimes it is in our best interest to help the under-achiever.

Recently I was working in a venture with a person that was under-performing and it was bringing the whole partnership productivity down. We were both responsible for parts of the venture that were complementary but mutually exclusive. My problem was how to help her achieve the desired performance without destroying the partnership by being invasive and controlling. The reasons for my decision to help were:

• It seemed fixable (no drug use, alcohol or any of the sorts). 
• Her past performance indicated that she was capable of much more than she was delivering. 
• Dissolving the partnership would have been a complicated and messy affair – and not good for both our reputations. 

My plan was to approach this person and state the problem and my intentions in a clear and respectful manner. I set up an appointment to discuss the situation in a non threatening environment and out of the office. During the conversation I setup myself as a supporter and ally and not a fixer – this is important! You are there to help not do their job (unless it is a problem in your area). At the end of the meeting we established an agreement that we would work on the problems and setup a general plan. Keep it simple.
Over the next few days, we clearly identified the problems, their causes and devised plans to fix and correct each one of them, as well as establishing indicators and goals for each one of them (you have to know when you are done). We identified everything that may be affecting her performance, from rebellious employees to over-dependent clients, and put a plan in place to correct them.
Over time, we tracked our plans and made corrections, while keeping our eyes in our indicators and goals. As problems started to disappear her productivity went back to what was expected and we developed a better working relationship.

You should know your economic environment style

I am always thinking about ways to make a business more efficient and cost effective. When functions, processes and companies are not well organized I can almost see the destruction of economic wealth. Because of this, there are two economic environments that suit me rather well:

1. The downturn. Companies are looking for ways to be more efficient and reduce costs. This plays beautifully into my natural way of thinking.
2. The boom. Increasing capacity by increasing efficiency is the name of the game. Companies recognize that it takes time to put new resources into place - so the more well thought out the processes, the better they can cope with accelerated growth.

What about you? Describe the variables that make your work more interesting (for you). Think about your strengths and apply them to the current environment. This should give you some insight into why your work feels so rewarding sometimes and why in others it just feels blah.

Now, turn the thinking around. Think about your company and what different environments increase your worth to them. Make sure they know your value proposition based on the current economic environment.

Communicating your strategy for best results

You have spent a year formulating your strategy. It is firmly and clearly stated in a Powerpoint. You are done, right? Not by a long shot. Let's ignore for a moment the effort required to implement, and let's focus on the communication effort. You need to clearly communicate to ALL stakeholders the new strategy and how it affects them. The companies that don't know how to do this send out an email (with the powerpoint and a nice introduction) and then forget about it.  Then they wonder why their efforts didn't pan out and nothing really changed.

Two things you have to remember:

1. You and your management team know more than everybody else.
2. The rest of your stakeholders can not read your mind to see what's in it - but they will try.

To maximize results tell your coworkers, subordinates, providers, partners and clients what they should expect from the new strategy and the benefits they will receive. You have to craft the message according to the audience (communications 101) and make sure the message is visible and repeated (that is why advertising works). If required, you should form a transformation and communications office to make sure that happens.

More on the how in a latter post...

Good communication will make you a good leader - and help you keep you job

One of the worst defects of low leadership skills is poor communication. I’ve seen it a couple of times, nobody knows how the boss got the job as he seems unable to communicate his ideas coherently. Most of the time he seemed to be babbling - his speeches were full of trendy words and ideas but no substance; it took an enormous amount of effort on our behalf to understand what he wanted us to do. And obviously, sometimes we misunderstood and made mistakes. His shining point: he knew how to dress you down in front of everybody. Don’t be that boss.

You better understand (and quickly) how to deliver a message. Not only a better communicator will outshine you every time, but it will cause your organization to be erratic and mistrustful of your actions. It can help your subordinates set you up for failure and it will certainly make you a joke around the office.

I was reading a very good article on the MIT Management Review about how subordinates may be setting you up to fail. The article centers (among other things) in how perception plays a key role in how your actions, inactions and communications are received by your team. Although you cannot take responsibility of how people will understand your message, you better make sure your delivery is appropriate.

One of my mentors at Booz Allen gave me a maxim that I took to heart. Communications has two parts:

1) Message – what you are trying to say

2) Delivery – how you present your ideas

Delivery is how you may shape the perception of everyone who is receiving your message. Delivery could be short and sweet, floral and effervescent, somber and full of protocol. How you shape your delivery will not only help the audience receive the message, but get the right context for the message. Don’t tell the group that the company is restructuring while your face is smiling (I’ve seen this), or say you are focusing on indicators while doing nothing to get them (your actions are part of your delivery).

My recommendation is that you be the boss that means what he says and says what he means. Let your message and actions be coherent – in times of uncertainty make your message crystal clear.